No Man's Woman

Marie Windsor, who had already made an impression as a self-serving and blundering undercover policewoman in NARROW MARGIN (US 1952), gets to have an even more selfish and self-serving role in NO MAN'S WOMAN.

She thinks nothing of cheating on hubby John Archer while refusing to divorce him, to try a new affair with her employee's fiancé, and to kick her journalist lover out when he is fired for breaching his professional duties in a bid to assist Windsor with the sale of her paintings.

Windsor so commands this film that it never quite recovers from her demise. Archer, with a voice that resembles that of the voiceover one hears in many of the B pics of the time, fails to get my sympathy the moment he takes to drinking, classy Patrick Knowles tries his best but his part is not the most endearing, and Jill Jarmyn just cannot act to save her life.

Thankfully, cinematography is competent and Adreon does his best with limited acting resources and a script with some clever twists. Short, not sweet, but NO MAN'S WOMAN merits watching.

Marie Windsor is a piece of work. She's living apart from her husband, John Archer, but taking half his earnings. He wants to get married to Nancy Gates, so he asks Miss Windsor for a divorce. She wants a continuing half his earnings, plus $300,000 in cash; his father can sell his half of the business. Meanwhile, Miss Windsor is partners in an art gallery with Patrick Knowles, and putting the moves on Richard Crane, who's engaged to her assistant, Jil Jarmyn. In fact, she's just got Miss Jarmyn to return her engagement ring by telling her she's carrying on an affair with Crane.

So naturally she's shot by someone standing just offscreen. Enter the police.

It's a cheaply shot Republic B movie, and while everyone is decent, their line deliveries are rather declamatory. It's directed by Franklin Adreon(1902-1979). He had been writing Republic serials since 1937, and had directed a few for a couple of years. Now he was directing movies, and television, but it looks like the habits of the serials had stuck with him: grind them out cheap, grind them out fast and don't worry about the nuances. It's a well-written mystery, but the execution of the film is dull, except for Miss Windsor and her nasty attitude. I'd've shot her myself.

Carolyn Grant (Marie Windsor) is just making enemies left and right - She won't divorce her estranged husband because the money is too good even though he (John Archer as Harlow Grant) wants to remarry to a less showy, more homey (but not homely) woman (Nancy Gates as Louise Nelson). Carolyn is trying to break up her employee's engagement just because. The guy (Richard Crane as Dick Sawyer) has no interest in her. So one night an intruder - the audience doesn't see who it is - shoots her dead on the stairs. Everybody she ever said hello to is rightfully a suspect.

So this film is neatly divided into two parts. The first part is playing out like a Douglas Sirk melodrama of the time. The second part, after the murder, is your basic whodunnit. It rather plays out like an overly long version of Perry Mason, as you are pretty sure you know who is going to end up murdered, there is a parade of people who have good motive for performing the murder, except this is not a courtroom drama and there is no hard charging defense attorney involved. Also, Marie Windsor hangs around with a pulse longer than any of the victims in Perry Mason, but then who wants to let Marie Windsor's bad girl talents go to waste?

It does seem like it is trying to compete for the kind of audiences who watched TV in the 50s. The sets aren't cheap but they aren't deluxe either. The acting is competent, and the script is not much of a surprise, but it does fit the bill if you are a fan of these 50s noir/crime dramas.

Windsor plays a conniving, unfaithful wife whose fed up husband wants to marry a "nice" girl and is willing to make her a fair offer in exchange for a divorce. She makes an exorbitant demand and ups the price by 100 grand after he responds by throwing a drink in her face. This is followed by her shocked father-in-law's remark "no matter how you look at it, that woman is a witch!" To which his son replies "no matter how you spell it either." A good example of some of the clever (not to mention funny) pseudo-profanity and "no-no" innuendo script writers had to develop back then.

As usual, Windsor plays her part to the hilt and makes a very credible villain. Unfortunately, the script writers went overboard with her character, almost making her a caricature of herself. They exaggerate her "W" or "B"ness to such a degree that it becomes unrealistic and even comical. What self-respecting cold, calculating gold-digger would publicly commit adultery with her secretary's fiancée before she was done squeezing her husband? Windsor herself seems to display an inner grin even with her nastiest facial expressions. She no doubt realized how ridiculous some of the script was. In the movie, she owns and lives in an art gallery. Since the real Marie Windsor was a multi-talented individual who achieved some success as a painter and sculptress, I wonder if this is simply coincidental.

I guess one purpose served by making her such a larger than life meanie is to make all the suspects seem equally likely to have killed her.

A mix of true "noir" and standard "whodunit" hurt by overdone melodramatics, yet still worth seeing.

Marie Windsor stars as Carolyn Ellenson Grant, a nasty selfish lady. Her husband is desperate to divorce her, but she refuses and lives a completely separate life on his money. She also has a lover who she uses ruthlessly to get what she wants and along the way she decides to destroy a few lives for kicks. Eventually, she is killed and the police think the husband did it...not realizing practically EVERYONE had motives to do it! Can the poor hubby manage to prove his innocence?

The first portion of the film is more enjoyable than the last...though it is overall a very good movie. Watching Windsor playing such a conniving and god-awful person is incredibly enjoyable and it's a part that Joan Crawford could have done well in at this time...though Windsor was quite convincing. Worth seeing...and a bit like film noir in many ways.